Balloons

Post navigation

The red balloons are all over town today. The red balloons that DC loves to much….

It must be close to ‘Co-lation’ (Graduation) Day at the high school….

From June 2015:

We may never pass this way again – Happy ‘Co-lation’

It’s that time of year when the red balloons decorate mailboxes all over town, indicating a member of that family is ‘Co-lating’ (DC-speak = Graduating) from the high school this week. Every year when I start to see these balloons, I remember DC’s ‘co-lation’ and his balloons.

DC always noticed these balloons around town and I always told him that when it was time for him to graduate, he would find balloons of his own on our mailbox. I think this was one of the big things he was looking forward to when ‘Co-lation’ came around for him.

Somewhere close to the end of the school year, among all of the other “senior-specific” notices that came home was the balloon order. We order them ahead of time, in any amount we wish. Knowing how much DC was looking forward to these balloons, I tried not to get carried away (because that is what I do) with an order of 12 – I decided to go with the norm – 3 or 4. DC’s friend *Candi had been moved up a year so that she could walk at ‘Co-lation’ with the friends she had gone to school with all of her life and move on to the transition program at the college with them. Due to the crack record-keeping skills at the High School, Candi’s mother *Coach, never received any of these senior notices including the balloon order form.

(I continued to receive a report card at the end of every semester for a full two years after DC left the high school. Yes, the transition program was part of the public school system but these report cards came complete with glowing reports from teachers he no longer had, about subjects he hadn’t taken since he left the high school. Not to worry, *Coach did receive all of the “senior” notices, including the balloon order form the following year when *Candi was also no longer at the high school.)

The delivery of said balloons took place during the school day so that the balloons were there on the mailboxes when the students arrived home. *Coach actually found one of the balloon delivery people on the road and stopped her to ask if they had even one extra that she could purchase for *Candi. The woman making the deliveries told her that due to the high winds that day, many of the balloons had popped or deflated and she barely had enough to make her deliveries.

I do not remember why I was home early from work that day, I am guessing it was for a dental appointment because I seem to spend my life at the dentist, but I came home to a bunch of deflated balloons on the mailbox. Fortunately I had a little bit of time before DC arrived home so I ran around town trying to find a few replacement balloons so there would at least be something on the mailbox when he came home. There was no way he would miss seeing all of the other balloons on his way home and if he did, there were some in perfect condition right down the street that he definitely would not miss.

Red balloons were not to be found anywhere in town and graduation balloons in any color were in short supply. I didn’t have enough time to leave town and search elsewhere, so I had to settle for two blue graduation balloons. *Coach being out on the same hunt, also had to settle for blue.

I got them home in time and he had his balloons when he got off the bus. They were blue and I told him that he received a better color because he is just that special. He was happy. His friend *Candi had the same color, of course…….. because they are both very special people.

********************

Just an added throwback; this song was THE Graduation and/or Prom song when I was a kid. Although it did come out right around the time of my 8th grade graduation, it wasn’t mine but it always comes to mind when I think about a graduation:

******

Update: 6/20/15 – After reading this post, my friend *Coach reminded me how the rest of Graduation Day went….

My car broke down bringing DC to rehearsal in the morning (my car also broke down the morning of his middle school graduation and I had a flat tire the day of his elementary school graduation) – *Coach lost her front tooth, so she was determined to go the remainder of the day – rehearsal, the ceremony and the after party without talking or smiling. That made for great Graduation pics!

It’s that time of year when the red balloons decorate mailboxes all over town, indicating a member of that family is ‘Co-lating’ (DC-speak = Graduating) from the high school this week. Every year when I start to see these balloons, I remember DC’s ‘co-lation’ and his balloons.

DC always noticed these balloons around town and I always told him that when it was time for him to graduate, he would find balloons of his own on our mailbox. I think this was one of the big things he was looking forward to when ‘Co-lation’ came around for him.

Somewhere close to the end of the school year, among all of the other “senior-specific” notices that came home was the balloon order. We order them ahead of time, in any amount we wish. Knowing how much DC was looking forward to these balloons, I tried not to get carried away (because that is what I do) with an order of 12 – I decided to go with the norm – 3 or 4. DC’s friend *Candi had been moved up a year so that she could walk at ‘Co-lation’ with the friends she had gone to school with all of her life and move on to the transition program at the college with them. Due to the crack record-keeping skills at the High School, Candi’s mother *Coach, never received any of these senior notices including the balloon order form.

(I continued to receive a report card at the end of every semester for a full two years after DC left the high school. Yes, the transition program was part of the public school system but these report cards came complete with glowing reports from teachers he no longer had, about subjects he hadn’t taken since he left the high school. Not to worry, *Coach did receive all of the “senior” notices, including the balloon order form the following year when *Candi was also no longer at the high school.)

The delivery of said balloons took place during the school day so that the balloons were there on the mailboxes when the students arrived home. *Coach actually found one of the balloon delivery people on the road and stopped her to ask if they had even one extra that she could purchase for *Candi. The woman making the deliveries told her that due to the high winds that day, many of the balloons had popped or deflated and she barely had enough to make her deliveries.

I do not remember why I was home early from work that day, I am guessing it was for a dental appointment because I seem to spend my life at the dentist, but I came home to a bunch of deflated balloons on the mailbox. Fortunately I had a little bit of time before DC arrived home so I ran around town trying to find a few replacement balloons so there would at least be something on the mailbox when he came home. There was no way he would miss seeing all of the other balloons on his way home and if he did, there were some in perfect condition right down the street that he definitely would not miss.

Red balloons were not to be found anywhere in town and graduation balloons in any color were in short supply. I didn’t have enough time to leave town and search elsewhere, so I had to settle for two blue graduation balloons. *Coach being out on the same hunt, also had to settle for blue.

I got them home in time and he had his balloons when he got off the bus. They were blue and I told him that he received a better color because he is just that special. He was happy. His friend *Candi had the same color, of course…….. because they are both very special people.

********************

Just an added throwback; this song was THE Graduation and/or Prom song when I was a kid. Although it did come out right around the time of my 8th grade graduation, it wasn’t mine but it always comes to mind when I think about a graduation:

******

Update: 6/20/15 – After reading this post, my friend *Coach reminded me how the rest of Graduation Day went….

My car broke down bringing DC to rehearsal in the morning (my car also broke down the morning of his middle school graduation and I had a flat tire the day of his elementary school graduation) – *Coach lost her front tooth, so she was determined to go the remainder of the day – rehearsal, the ceremony and the after party without talking or smiling. That made for great Graduation pics!

Contributed to:

Break the Parenting Mold

Member of:

member of:

Blogher

Charity Miles

Liebster

My Most Recent Posts: Taking it a Step at a Time

Let’s begin with my memory, especially for the things we do habitually every day and even more especially, the things we do out of habit or automatically in the morning. Back before they invented coffee makers that shut off on a timer, I can’t tell you how many times I had to leave work to […]

DC’s way of communicating is oftentimes mentioning a tiny detail that no one at the time found important (but it was important to him). It is my job to go back in my memory to see if I can remember anything that might connect to what he is trying to tell me. This […]

This week’s Finish the Sentence Friday prompt is “The Last Book I read was….”. As I am no longer the avid reader that I once was (the whole “reading glasses” situation is explained below), the last book that I DID read was close to a year ago, now. The subject matter being two subjects that […]

DC has been counting the days waiting for Thanksgiving to arrive and just know that he would never imagine keeping me out of the loop on this…… daily/hourly/every few minutes. I do have to say that his ‘Thanksgiving’ pronunciation has improved over the past year but “firsday’ is still ‘firsday’ I am not really […]

……. but we DO have “Jim Dear” As Halloween’s go, this could be the “lowest key” low-key Halloween we have ever had. This post, which would normally be our “Halloween Wrap-Up” post is not much of a wrap-up post at all. With only 3 parties scheduled this season, we were already down a few activities […]

This is more about DC’s ability (or inability) to choose between two or more options than it is about Halloween but Halloween is a factor in this particular story. DC takes Halloween and the costumes he chooses, pretty seriously. It seems as though we used to have more parties to attend and more costumes to […]

This week the Finish The Sentence Friday prompt is a Listicle – “Share 10 photos from your phone”. There could not have been more perfect timing. As you may or may not remember, I lost all of the photos that were stored on my computer a few weeks ago. The computer went to the […]

It’s been busy ’round here and before I knew what happened, it is the end of September with …… Wait for it…… Halloween right around the corner and we are just now “getting ready”. If you are new here, you might not understand that last sentence. Halloween is a big deal for both DC and […]

Never could I have ever imagined when I was younger, that I would at some point be counting the days until summer was over. Summer was ALWAYS my season. We were on the beach by the end of March or early April (maybe in not so warm conditions, but we were there) and perfectly tanned […]

I had already decided which old post I was going to re-post for Finish the Sentence Friday’s “Share an Old Post” when I came across this status in my Facebook memories from 8 (gulp) years ago and decided (being that it is so timely) I would share the post related to the “college” status instead. […]